


homemade chocolates

by geekbaits



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Different School!AU, Drabble, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 22:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18291305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geekbaits/pseuds/geekbaits
Summary: Different School!AU | Adrienette, slight Chloalya | Giving out homemade Valentine’s Day chocolates should NOT be this difficult.





	homemade chocolates

**Author's Note:**

> As of 3/30/19, this has been sitting in my drafts for 1 year and 2 months. One of my favorite shoujo manga tropes is Valentine’s Day where the protagonist struggles to give her love interest her homemade chocolates. I couldn’t uproot the kids and put them in Japan but this was still fun to write in France lol.

“Alya, I know I said I’d give it to him, but I’m not so sure this is a good idea,” Marinette gestured to the little heart-shaped box she held in her hands, “Y’know, exams are coming up and Adrien’s probably gonna want to study...”

Alya shook her head and gave her best friend a light shove, “ _Nope_. It’s Valentine’s Day and I am going to make sure you don’t chicken out of this.”

“I wasn’t going to chicken out,” Marinette grumbled, scuffing the pavement with the toe of her shoe, “...I was just gonna wait for an opportune moment.”

“Which is  _today._ At three o’clock.” Alya said with finality, “Look Mari, you were up  _all_ night making sure the chocolates were  _perfect_ and we actually made it all the way to his school. You only have a few more steps. It’ll be  _fine._ ”

Marinette cringed.

Alya made it sound like giving the boy of your dreams a  _Valentine’s Day_ present was  _no big deal_. Given Marinette’s tendency to become embarrassingly incoherent in Adrien Agreste’s presence, the girl was positive that something was going to go wrong.

She wanted to run away so  _badly_.

In fact, if Marinette really wanted to, she could definitely run away now while she still had the chance to--

“Oh! I see him coming!” Alya whispered, whacking Marinette in the arm, “He’s early.”

But of course the universe wouldn’t allow that to happen.

He was coming and she was totally unprepared despite practicing what she’d say and how this entire production would go down  _all_ night.

Marinette clutched Adrien’s gift against her chest, taking quick glances between possible escape routes and her best friend, who was too busy observing Adrien from behind the wall.

She could see Alya speaking, but couldn’t hear a word, only her heart pounding wildly in her chest. Even now, as she helplessly allowed herself to be tugged out from behind the wall by Alya, Marinette remained too nervous to function properly.

It simply was  _not_ the right time to talk to Adrien.

“Marinette?”

Marinette felt her anxiety shoot through the  _roof_ as Adrien approached her, his best friend Chloe Bourgeois gently gripping his arm, observing Marinette through narrowed eyes. Mercifully, the blonde only rolled her eyes at the girl.

“Oh, not  _this_ ,” Chloe sniffed, releasing Adrien’s arm, “I’m going ahead, Adrikins. The impending second-hand embarrassment is simply suffocating.”

“We could say the same about your perfume, but we weren’t raised in a barn,” Marinette heard Alya grumble behind her. Chloe ignored Marinette’s red-haired best friend, smacking an obnoxiously loud kiss to Adrien’s cheek before flouncing away.  

“Give me a  _break_ ,” Alya scoffed.

“What, jealous?” Chloe replied impishly, stepping closer to Alya. She began to blow a bubble gum bubble, unfazed when the spectacled girl before her reached out to pop it.

“Please,” Alya jeered, “I don’t need tacky frosted lip gloss—”

“ _Alya Cesaire, don’t you dare._ ”

“—anywhere near me.”

“Oh yeah, well—”  

The exchange between Chloe and Alya went unnoticed by Marinette, their banter fading into the background, as the petrified teen was completely preoccupied by the object of her affection. Adrien smiled fondly at Marinette, as he did almost every morning when he visited the bakery for his morning pastry.

Her cheeks warmed.

“Hey, Marinette!” Adrien warmly greeted, “I haven’t seen you in a few days. How’ve you been?”

“Good!” Marinette blurted out, “I, um, I haven’t seen you for a while so I wanted to check you out. I mean,  _check on you_!”

“Yeah, sorry,” Adrien rubbed the back of his neck, “I had a photoshoot out in the country for my father’s newest shoot, but don’t worry! I’ll be back at the bakery tomorrow morning bright and early!”

He smiled at Marinette, and for a second, she could’ve sworn that she forgot her own name, where she was, what she was doing--basically everything but this beautiful person before her.

Marinette’s heart thudded wildly in her chest, and at this point, she was fairly certain her face was in flames. She’d known Adrien for quite some time now, going on 2 years, and still had yet to actually confess her feelings towards him. It’s not like she’d expect him to react badly, Adrien was gentle and kind.

So, if he did reject her, it wouldn’t be harsh or cruel.

She thought about all those mornings when Adrien entered her parents’ bakery, before any other customer. He’d converse with her mother, sometimes in her mother’s native tongue, and share bread jokes her with father. And sometimes, just sometimes, Adrien would come and talk to her.

It was during those times, much like now, that he made her feel like she was the only girl in the world who mattered.

_Adrien Agreste, quite possibly one of the most beautiful souls in the universe and the love of my life._

_How can someone so beautiful be real?_

“Um, Mari? Mari!” Marinette heard Alya call her, from far away. Distantly, she could hear the sounds of Chloe snickering behind her best friend.

“Oh god, what a  _sap_.”

“Shut  _up_ , Chloe.”

“Look, I don’t even think she realizes what she just said. I mean, look at Adrikins! He’s probably  _broken!”_

That was enough for the dark-haired girl to pull away from her thoughts, meeting Adrien’s stare. To her surprise (and horror), Adrien looked simply dumbstruck. Pink flooded his cheeks before he turned away with an unfathomable expression.

If there were any gods out there, Marinette begged for them to allow the earth to swallow her up in that moment.

Judging by her current surroundings--a horrified Alya, smug Chloe, and embarrassed Adrien--Marinette was pretty sure that she had spoken  _out loud_. 

Which meant that Adrien knew how she felt.

Because she just admitted to him.

Because Marinette Dupain-Cheng is prone to these kinds of mishaps.

Suddenly, the box of chocolates seemed heavier in her hands. Panicked, the girl stepped forward, thrust the box of chocolates into Adrien’s arms and spun around on her heel.

Face flaming, she blurted out, “I, um,  _those are for you_! See ya, Adrien!” 

Seizing Alya by the wrist, Marinette made a beeline for the bakery. Together, the two best friends ran up the stairs to Marinette’s room. 

“That was so  _bad_!” Marinette screeched when the latch on the door clicked in place, “That was so, so bad! Alya, why didn’t you stop me?!”

Her thoughts began to swirl in her mind of the worst kind of scenarios, “Now, Adrien will hate me and he’s never going to come back here and he’s going to tell other people to not come here, and my parents are going to go out of business and we’ll have to go live with the rats on the street--”

“Marinette!” Alya interrupted, “I don’t think that’s gonna happen.”

“What makes you think that?!” Marinette asked, “This is a disaster! A total disaster! Oh, why did I go there today?!” 

"I don’t think it’s  _that_ bad,” Alya argued, “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what Adrien says.”

“If he even comes around at all,” Marinette grumbled. 

Alya patted her friend’s arm, “It’ll be okay, Marinette. I’m sure you’ll hear from him soon.”

Marinette wanted to believe her friend, but she wasn’t entirely sure.

“ _Marinette!”_ called her mother from downstairs, “Can you come to the register for a second? Your father and I have to handle another order!”

“Coming!” replied Marinette. She turned to Alya, “This shouldn’t take long. I’ll be back to mourn over how  _absurd_ I am!”

“You aren’t absurd,” Alya replied, “Now go. I gotta get home anyway.”

When Marinette got to the register in the front of the bakery, of all the things she expected, she certainly wasn’t expecting a certain blonde-haired, green-eyed model standing at the door. Adrien stood alone, staring directly at Marinette.

Her stomach fluttered when he smiled shyly at her. She saw her box of chocolates in his arms, and in his hand, she saw a single red rose tightly clasped between his index finger and his thumb.

"I...I thought it’d be rude to keep the lady waiting,” Adrien explained softly, approaching the counter. Wordlessly, he offered the rose to Marinette, who easily accepted it.

Her heart gave a jolt when her fingers softly brushed against his. Marinette hadn’t imagined this happening, not in her wildest daydreams. 

_This is all too good to be true._

“I kinda thought the same after you ran off,” Adrien replied. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before, I was planning on giving this to you after school, so I left early to come here but you kind of surprised me.”

Marinette continued to gaze at Adrien for a few beats, allowing his words to sink in. 

_He’d been planning on giving her a rose on Valentine’s day after school, and left early to meet her_.

She beamed at Adrien, and, emboldened by the implications of his words, reached forward to grasp his hand, intertwining their fingers. Her felt her cheeks warm at Adrien’s stunned expression.

“Did you try any of the chocolates?” she asked quietly. “I filled some with passionfruit. I know how much you like it.”

“Well, actually,” Adrien answered, squeezing their hands together, “I was hoping to try them out together.” 

“I’d like that.”


End file.
